ADR-006 — Shopify-only channel

Status: Accepted · Date: 2026-06-02

Context

A personalized story + activity book with a free preview, a paid digital unlock, a physical POD upsell, and a progression plan needs a storefront that supports: custom per-order generation, preview gating, digital + physical SKUs, subscription/plan billing, and upsell/cross-sell flows — while owning the customer relationship for repeat purchase. The obvious low-effort alternatives don't fit.

Decision

Sell + fulfill via a standalone Shopify store (+ a book-grade POD partner — Lulu / Gelato / Peecho). Customer flow: browse → preview → pay. The creation wizard + generation is likely a custom app seamed to Shopify checkout/fulfillment.

Rationale

• Amazon KDP can't do the personalized-per-order + preview-gating + plan model — it's a fixed-catalog self-publishing channel, not a custom-generation storefront, and it doesn't give us the customer relationship the repeat engine depends on.
• Etsy is risky — marketplace policy/algorithm dependency, weak control over the funnel and customer data, and ill-suited to subscription/progression billing.
• Shopify gives full control of the funnel (preview→purchase), supports digital + physical + subscription, owns customer data for re-engagement at grade/season boundaries, and integrates with book-grade POD. The open seam (Shopify ↔ generator app boundary) is tracked in Open Questions → resolve in the PRD.

Source / evidence

• Project-Objective.md §4 (Pillar 3), §11 (capability 11), §12
• Research_Synthesis.md §11 (platform-dependency risk → own customer data; multi-vendor print)
• Overview — distribution & fulfillment